Archives
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Recent Posts
- D.N.M.: DEA’s failure to make a detailed inventory in violation of policy doesn’t require exclusion of evidence
- WaPo: These cities bar facial recognition tech. Police still found ways to access it.
- C.D.Cal.: SW materials in case with weighty public interest ordered unsealed
- DC: Accepting a law license is consent to trust account subpoenas
- AR: RS def rented a hotel room was sufficient for search waiver; PC not required
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ABA Journal Web 100, Best Law Blogs (2017); ABA Journal Blawg 100 (2015-16) (discontinued 2018)
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by John Wesley Hall
Criminal Defense Lawyer and
Search and seizure law consultant
Little Rock, Arkansas
Contact: forhall @ aol.com / The Book
www.johnwesleyhall.com -
© 2003-24,
online since Feb. 24, 2003 Approx. 425,000 visits (non-robot) since 2012 Approx. 45,000 posts since 2003 (26,730+ on WordPress as of 12/31/23) -
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Fourth Amendment cases,
citations, and links -
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Congressional Research Service:
--Electronic Communications Privacy Act (2012)
--Overview of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (2012)
--Outline of Federal Statutes Governing Wiretapping and Electronic Eavesdropping (2012)
--Federal Statutes Governing Wiretapping and Electronic Eavesdropping (2012)
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"If it was easy, everybody would be doing it. It isn't, and they don't."
—Me -
"Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but of playing a poor hand well."
–Josh Billings (pseudonym of Henry Wheeler Shaw), Josh Billings on Ice, and Other Things (1868) (erroneously attributed to Robert Louis Stevenson, among others) -
“I am still learning.”
—Domenico Giuntalodi (but misattributed to Michelangelo Buonarroti (common phrase throughout 1500's)). -
"Love work; hate mastery over others; and avoid intimacy with the government."
—Shemaya, in the Thalmud -
"It is a pleasant world we live in, sir, a very pleasant world. There are bad people in it, Mr. Richard, but if there were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers."
—Charles Dickens, “The Old Curiosity Shop ... With a Frontispiece. From a Painting by Geo. Cattermole, Etc.” 255 (1848) -
"A system of law that not only makes certain conduct criminal, but also lays down rules for the conduct of the authorities, often becomes complex in its application to individual cases, and will from time to time produce imperfect results, especially if one's attention is confined to the particular case at bar. Some criminals do go free because of the necessity of keeping government and its servants in their place. That is one of the costs of having and enforcing a Bill of Rights. This country is built on the assumption that the cost is worth paying, and that in the long run we are all both freer and safer if the Constitution is strictly enforced."
—Williams v. Nix, 700 F. 2d 1164, 1173 (8th Cir. 1983) (Richard Sheppard Arnold, J.), rev'd Nix v. Williams, 467 US. 431 (1984). -
"The criminal goes free, if he must, but it is the law that sets him free. Nothing can destroy a government more quickly than its failure to observe its own laws, or worse, its disregard of the charter of its own existence."
—Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 659 (1961). -
"Any costs the exclusionary rule are costs imposed directly by the Fourth Amendment."
—Yale Kamisar, 86 Mich.L.Rev. 1, 36 n. 151 (1987). -
"There have been powerful hydraulic pressures throughout our history that bear heavily on the Court to water down constitutional guarantees and give the police the upper hand. That hydraulic pressure has probably never been greater than it is today."
— Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 39 (1968) (Douglas, J., dissenting). -
"The great end, for which men entered into society, was to secure their property."
—Entick v. Carrington, 19 How.St.Tr. 1029, 1066, 95 Eng. Rep. 807 (C.P. 1765) -
"It is a fair summary of history to say that the safeguards of liberty have frequently been forged in controversies involving not very nice people. And so, while we are concerned here with a shabby defrauder, we must deal with his case in the context of what are really the great themes expressed by the Fourth Amendment."
—United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U.S. 56, 69 (1950) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting) -
"The course of true law pertaining to searches and seizures, as enunciated here, has not–to put it mildly–run smooth."
—Chapman v. United States, 365 U.S. 610, 618 (1961) (Frankfurter, J., concurring). -
"A search is a search, even if it happens to disclose nothing but the bottom of a turntable."
—Arizona v. Hicks, 480 U.S. 321, 325 (1987) -
"For the Fourth Amendment protects people, not places. What a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection. ... But what he seeks to preserve as private, even in an area accessible to the public, may be constitutionally protected."
—Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 351 (1967) -
“Experience should teach us to be most on guard to protect liberty when the Government’s purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.”
—United States v. Olmstead, 277 U.S. 438, 479 (1925) (Brandeis, J., dissenting) -
“Liberty—the freedom from unwarranted intrusion by government—is as easily lost through insistent nibbles by government officials who seek to do their jobs too well as by those whose purpose it is to oppress; the piranha can be as deadly as the shark.”
—United States v. $124,570, 873 F.2d 1240, 1246 (9th Cir. 1989) -
"You can't always get what you want / But if you try sometimes / You just might find / You get what you need."
—Mick Jagger & Keith Richards -
"In Germany, they first came for the communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Catholic. Then they came for me–and by that time there was nobody left to speak up."
—Martin Niemöller (1945) [he served seven years in a concentration camp] -
“You know, most men would get discouraged by now. Fortunately for you, I am not most men!”
---Pepé Le Pew "The point of the Fourth Amendment, which often is not grasped by zealous officers, is not that it denies law enforcement the support of the usual inferences which reasonable men draw from evidence. Its protection consists in requiring that those inferences be drawn by a neutral and detached magistrate instead of being judged by the officer engaged in the often competitive enterprise of ferreting out crime."
—Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10, 13-14 (1948)
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Monthly Archives: June 2015
CA8: “Faint smell” of marijuana in a car is enough for a search; how do you differentiate?
The “faint smell” of marijuana in a car is enough for a search. The court declines to differentiate between faint and stronger. United States v. Smith, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 10337 (8th Cir. June 19, 2015). Second successive 2255 raising … Continue reading
W.D.La.: By requesting a tax reassessment, plaintiff did not consent to an entry onto the curtilage or an entry into the property
By requesting a tax reassessment, plaintiff did not consent to an entry onto the curtilage or an entry into the property for the reassessment. King v. La. Tax Comm’n, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 80012 (W.D.La. June 19, 2015). Defendant’s stop … Continue reading
E.D.Ky.: IAC overbroad search claim requires SW be attached or otherwise in the record
In a 2255 IAC, defendant’s claim that defense counsel was ineffective for not challenging the search warrant of his hotel room as overbroad fails without attaching the warrant so the court can see. It’s not otherwise in the record. United … Continue reading
LA: Probationer in the house of another probationer during a PO home visit was searched with RS
Defendant was a probationer in the house of another probationer when the other probationer was subjected to a home visit. After finding marijuana in the bedroom, the officers conducted a protective search of defendant and found drugs. The search was … Continue reading
DE: No IAC where third-party consent, no standing, and desire to distance def from gun
Defense counsel was not ineffective for not seeking suppression of a gun in a capital case where the gun was his father’s and in his father’s house and his father consented to the search. Aside from the voluntariness of the … Continue reading
The Hill: Spy court clears path to renewing NSA powers
The Hill: Spy court clears path to renewing NSA powers by Julian Hattem: The secretive federal court that oversees the nation’s spies is laying the groundwork for temporarily reauthorizing the National Security Agency’s (NSA) sweeping collection of U.S. phone records. … Continue reading
NYTimes: Illinois: Video of Shooting Released
NYTimes: Illinois: Video of Shooting Released (AP): A retired judge has released dashboard camera video from a Chicago police car that shows a white officer repeatedly firing his handgun into a car full of black youths who had been pulled … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: Waving money and looking nervous on a street corner was RS to a trained narcotics officer
A police officer stopping behind an already parked car isn’t a stop of the person who is free to walk away, United States v. Kim, 25 F.3d 1426 (9th Cir. 1994), but it is of the car. Here, officers had … Continue reading
MA: Order for fraternal twin to give up DNA to eliminate him here was unreasonable for an inadequate showing; contempt reversed
“This court concluded that a Superior Court judge, in entering a judgment of contempt in a criminal case due to the refusal, by a third party who was not a suspect, to comply with an order compelling him to provide … Continue reading
IL: Stopping writing citation to do a dog sniff without justification unlawfully extended the stop
The officer unlawfully prolonged the duration of the stop when he interrupted his traffic citation preparation to conduct a dog sniff based on an unparticularized suspicion of criminal activity. There was no dispute that the dog sniff added time to … Continue reading
D.S.D.: Independent source saves search where there was a trespass on the curtilage
“Law enforcement trespassed on Johnson’s property without a warrant and thereby violated Johnson’s Fourth Amendment rights. But probable cause existed without the evidence from the trash pull to search Johnson’s red 1994 Cadillac DeVille and his person. Evidence discovered in … Continue reading
The Guardian: Congress warned that drones present ‘a nightmare scenario for civil liberties’
The Guardian: Congress warned that drones present ‘a nightmare scenario for civil liberties’ House committee considering future of US airspace worries about unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) filming football games but silent on law enforcement use
M.D.Fla.: Def lacked standing in any event, so whether defense counsel was ineffective for not calling him as witness at suppression hearing is moot
2255 petitioner had no standing, even on his own allegations, so whether defense counsel was ineffective for not calling him to testify to standing was moot. “Because the Court finds that Campbell’s underlying claim to have had a reasonable expectation … Continue reading
IL: Mere “acceptance” of a package for an anticipatory warrant is overbroad
This anticipatory warrant’s triggering condition was “accept[ance]” of a package, not opening it although there were devices on it to tell the police that, too. Mere acceptance of the package makes it overbroad and vests too much discretion in the … Continue reading
CA2: Innocent 9/11 detainees arrested in 2002 stated a claim for relief for conditions of confinement in federal detention
After 9/11, 762 people were detained, some without the slightest probable cause. This case arose in 2002 after these plaintiffs were detained, held for months, sometimes in conditions sounding like they were war criminals, and later released. It’s a really … Continue reading
CA6: “[I]t is objectively unreasonable to frame an inmate” for a crime he didn’t commit
Plaintiff alleged an Art. III “injury in fact” in his claim that he was framed for a crime he didn’t commit. “Because it is objectively unreasonable to frame an inmate, we reverse the district court’s judgment and hold that Price … Continue reading
CA9: Stone v. Powell bar and the full and fair litigation requirement survived adoption of the AEDPA
Stone v. Powell bar and the full and fair litigation requirement survived adoption of the habeas limitations of AEDPA. Newman v. Wengler, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 10094 (9th Cir. June 16, 2015). [This may be the only case to ever … Continue reading
JD Supra: Law Enforcement in the 21st Century: How The Courts Are Responding
JD Supra: Law Enforcement in the 21st Century: How The Courts Are Responding by Tamara Bogosian: The world of law enforcement is changing rapidly. In the last few years, technology has advanced by leaps and bounds altering the way police … Continue reading